Paper short abstract:

This paper will outline a case study of a social housing provider in the UK, one of the stakeholders for smart cities, and their data sharing and quality practices. Results suggest that the social housing provider is not ready for the smart city movement. Recommendations are provided.

Paper long abstract:

Are the different stakeholders in cities ready to be smart? Models and frameworks of smart cities often focus on indicators that identify what makes a city smart, with varying degrees of detail on how to measure the indicators. The Sustainable Development Goal 11 - making cities safe, inclusive, resilient and sustainable - has a reasonably detailed set of indicators. But how well are stakeholders prepared to collect data for the indicators? This is what is meant with the initial question of whether stakeholders are ready to be smart. A city consists of more than the local government; many other organisations and individuals play their part in creating cities of tomorrow. This paper will investigate one stakeholder in particular in the UK, social housing, and its approach to data sharing and data quality. Data sharing and data quality are a very important component of smart cities. A qualitative field study using interviews, document search, and participatory observation, highlights that this social housing provider is in its initial steps towards creating data sharing and data quality practices in its organisation. This, however, is not in response to the smart city movement, but in response to regulatory pressures on better data reporting in the sector. In light of these results, the question at the beginning of the abstract should be rephrased to: How can we get stakeholders to be ready to be smart?